Tim Murphy Quotes From Ivy Football Teleconference

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Tim Murphy, the Thomas
Stephenson Family Head Coach for Harvard Football, recently took
part in the Ivy League's weekly teleconference. Below are his
quotes from the event.

Additionally, coach Murphy will give more insight into his
Crimson as he takes part in the weekly New England Football
Writers' Association Luncheon Wednesday afternoon at Harvard's
Dillon Field House.

The event - the nation's oldest weekly football media gathering,
now entering its 82nd season - begins at noon and features head
coaches, players and administrators from around the region from all
levels of NCAA competition. This year's event will be streamed live
via the web on GoCrimson.com and is part of the All-Access and
Football Season Pass for streaming.

Fans can login to Harvard's Multimedia section of the website to
watch the streams. Recaps of the event will be posted in the
afternoon and will be sent to media and area schools as well. Local
fans can do even better as the event is open to the public for a
fee of $10 per person.

Each school's coach/administrator will speak briefly about his
team's last game, a preview up the upcoming games and an assessment
of his team's top players. Additionally, the weekly Gold Helmet
Award is given to the preceding week's top players. The award is
sponsored by the Gridiron Club of Greater Boston and the weekly
winners - one from Divisions I and one from Divisions II/III - are
presented with a plaque.

Harvard Head Coach Tim Murphy on the team's game against
Brown
The best way to describe our game versus Brown was that it was a
polar opposite of our game against Holy Cross. Against Brown we had
three very critical errors - two in our own end, penalties and
minus-two on turnover ratio. Brown certainly deserves a lot of
credit for that. Simply put, we did not play up to our
capabilities. I did not do a good enough job of coaching. They are
a very good football team you can't make those kind of critical
errors (against good teams).

In the game, some of our kids on defense played extremely well
but we can't expose them to so many back-to-the-wall situations
like that. Collin Zych played
extremely well. He's very instinctive - just a tremendous
leader.

Marco (Iannuzzi) is a kid who is 24 years old. He took three
years in a row applying to Harvard before he got in and he hung in
there. He's a very good football player, he's been banged up at
times but he's playing very well right now. He is a great kid and
we are very happy for him.

On playing Lafayette
Lafayette is always a very challenging game on our schedule. They
have firmly established themselves as a playoff team. Every year it
goes down to the wire. They've got a big physical team and are very
athletic. It's going to be another tiger-by-the-tail (game) for
us.

On whether Harvard has had negative rushing yardage
before
Probably not during my tenure ever and believe me that is a point
of contention for me.

His thoughts on why the team did not have a lot of net
yards on the ground The bottom line is that we elected to throw the ball so
much. I would put that more on me than our kids. We've got a very
good quarterback and like to throw the football. We probably got
caught up in it. We got down early because of turnovers and had to
play catch up.

Keys to the Lafayette Game
I think they're a good football team that had a bit of bad luck
(in their first three games). Keys to the game are, number one,
take care of the football; two, come away with a positive turnover
ratio on that side. Three, be much more balanced on both offense
and defense to have a chance against a still very good Lafayette
team.

Importance of special teams in this league
Special teams is obviously very import. Keys to winning are to
one, play great defense - even more so than offense to win year in
and out. Number two is not how many yards, but taking care of the
football; then special teams. (for players on special teams), can
you be reliable enough to play assignments and make big plays?

We've improved on special teams this year. We've had a really
good job by our sophomore punter Jacob Dombrowksi with a 50 and 60
yard kick which bailed us out at times. Our freshman place kicker
David
Mothander has played well at times also.

On the importance of having guys who started 0-1 before
and remember coming back to win the Ivy League title Honestly, I don't even know who we're playing after our
next opponent. If we play to our potential, play with intensity and
emotion… if we do that, we'll have a chance to win, if we
don't we'll be in trouble.